It’s a make-or-break moment for any pastry chef: the few seconds after you finish your showpiece and begin the stunt of moving it to the display table. A showpiece, made out of chocolate or sugar, does just what its name suggests—it shows off. Paper-thin sugar ribbons, delicate chocolate spires, it’s a demonstration of skill and prowess. The goal is to defy gravity. The slightest bump can unleash an avalanche of falling pieces and result in the deepest of heartbreak.
Three cooks helped me carry my showpiece. With carefully choreographed steps, we all held our breath until the moment when the final fingertip pulled away from beneath the structure. I had assembled a large chocolate wave that wove around and back onto itself. It doubled as a display piece and a stand for my desserts. The structure required close to 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of chocolate to create. It took three weeks to perfect.
A few hours after its debut, however, I bashed my chocolate sculpture with a hammer like a wrecking ball through a wall. Those around me gasped as I knocked the pieces until splintered bits of chocolate covered the table.
“How can you stand to break down something you worked so hard to build?” one observer asked. To which I explained that I wasn’t breaking down, I was getting ready to build back up. This was the process of re-creation.
Chocolate, which can be melted and re-sculpted endlessly, is one of my favorite ingredients. I love to watch the sculpted shapes melt into a smooth and glossy pool, once again becoming a tabula rasa. Certain mediums constantly welcome reinvention. After each appearance, they can be reincarnated. They form a new and different wonder.
This chapter is about breaking down the classics and building them back up. Certain pastries have long-forgotten histories, and when you rediscover their secrets, you find inspiration for new points of view, as was the case with my Cotton-Soft Cheesecake. I’ll tell you about how something as storied as a croissant can be transformed in what seems like a magic trick. Sometimes, I’m inspired by things I don’t particularly like, and I’ll explain how when I describe my apple tart Tatin. Finally, I’ll share my story about how a bite-size chouquette, a small, unfilled cream puff, earned a spot in people’s hearts thanks to another one-bite treat.
We’re often told that we shouldn’t try to fix what’s not broken. I’m not trying to “fix” anything. Instead, I see each and every creation and re-creation as unique. There is no end to the road. Think instead of the endless number of paths, and open your mind to what lies beyond the horizon.
A few months after I smashed it, I recast my chocolate wave showpiece as an Easter egg the size of my torso. When May rolled around, I broke it down and shaped it into chocolate flower petals for a cake display. Some of these re-creations were big, others were small. Some were sturdy, others were more delicate. The beauty, however, is in how they were all connected.